What muscles does bench press work?

Bench pressing targets your chest, shoulders, triceps & more. The main muscles worked are your pectoralis major, deltoids, triceps, and serratus anterior. Your rhomboids, trapezius, and rotator cuff muscles provide support. Your grip, the type of equipment (flat, incline, machine, barbell, dumbbell, or cables), and biomechanics influence how your muscles get involved.

Introduction

Bench pressing is one of the 'big three' exercises that form the basics in almost all workout plans (the others being deadlifting and squatting). It's a compound exercise that mainly targets your chest and has many variations (incline, decline, dumbbells, machines, etc.).

It's such a critical exercise and a great upper body builder that you can't be a serious strength training enthusiast without doing the bench press or one of its alternatives.

If you have never done bench pressing before, for example, if you've never been to the gym before or didn't bother with strength training in the past, and you wonder which muscles are worked by bench pressing...well, that's what I'm going to cover below.

Primary muscles worked by bench pressing

The bench press primarily targets the front muscles of your upper body, specifically your chest muscles, shoulders, and triceps. Let's zoom in a little on these muscles.

1. Pectoralis major (and minor)

This is the primary muscle that's worked by bench pressing...you know, it's what makes a 'big chest' on strength training individuals. It is the large muscle in the chest responsible for horizontal adduction (bringing the arms toward the body's midline) and shoulder flexion.

Beneath the pectoralis major lies the pectoralis minor, which is also part of your chest muscles and gets worked out as well by bench pressing.

2. Anterior deltoids

The front portion of the deltoid muscles in your shoulders is also heavily involved in the bench press. They assist in shoulder flexion and stabilization during the movement.

When doing dumbbell chest pressing (a variation on bench pressing) on an adjustable bench, and if you increase the angle of the bench, you'll put more emphasis on the anterior delts (while also working your chest muscles).

The bigger the inclination is, the more you target your anterior delts during a chest pressing exercise.

3. Triceps brachii

The triceps muscles at the back of the upper arm are engaged during the bench press to extend the elbow and complete the pressing motion.

Other muscles involved in bench press

As the introduction notes, bench pressing is a compound exercise involving multiple joints and muscle groups. Hence, other muscles are also involved that help stabilize and support the weight during the exercise. These include:

Serratus anterior and rhomboids

This muscle, located on the sides of the chest, helps stabilize the shoulder blades during the bench press. The serratus anterior acts to pull your shoulder blades forward around your chest. Think about boxing: when you throw a punch forward, your shoulder blade will be pulled forward. That's what the serratus anterior does.

But, when you're bench pressing, for a proper technique and form, you need to squeeze your shoulder blades together and keep your shoulders to the back at all times during the exercise. Your rhomboid muscles, located in the middle of your upper back, are involved in that.

As such, the serratus anterior and your rhomboids are antagonist muscle groups. However, both muscles (i.e., the serratus anterior and rhomboids) work together to keep your shoulders retracted to the back and stabilize your shoulder blades as you are squeezing them together.

Trapezius

These muscles in the upper back also assist in shoulder blade retraction and stability, though to a lesser extent than the serratus anterior and the rhomboids.

Rotator cuff muscles

These muscles, including the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis, help stabilize the shoulder joint throughout the movement.

Does bench press work biceps?

I can be pretty clear on this question:

If you want to work your biceps, you have to do pull exercises. Bench pressing, on the other hand, is a push exercise (as a matter of fact, it is a staple in most push workouts).

This means that it mainly works your triceps and not your biceps since the triceps brachii muscles are responsible for the extension of your elbow joint (i.e., straightening your arm), which is what you’ll be doing when you’re pushing a load away from you.

Your biceps’ primary function, on the other hand, is to flex and supinate your forearms at your elbow joint. They help bring a load closer to your body.

However, if you still want to work your biceps, but for whatever reason you must do it by a pushing exercise, try to do reverse grip push-ups to target your biceps more.

Tips for bench pressing correctly

So, how do you bench press correctly? Below, I'll describe some tips that I use in my bench pressing. If you adhere to these tips, you have a large of the correct technique down.

To be honest, bench pressing is not that difficult, but there are some key points that you should keep in mind when doing this exercise. Here are my key points when I do bench pressing:

1. Upper body position on the bench.
2. Shoulder blade retraction.
3. Eccentric and concentric movement speeds.

1. Upper body position on the bench

When I lay on the bench to do some bench pressing, I get on the bench on my back such that my eyes or nose are directly under the barbell.

This cue allows me the best position from which I can unrack and re-rack the barbell before and after each set, respectively.

If my position is such that the barbell is too cranially (i.e., the barbell's position is straight over the hair on top of my head, or even beyond that), then I'd have difficulty unracking the barbell.

On the other hand, if the barbell is too caudally (i.e., the barbell is positioned straight over my chest or beyond that toward my ribs), then the rack (on which the barbell sits) will get in the way when doing each rep.

For me, I found that when I lay on the bench such that my eyes/nose are directly under the barbell, I'll have the ideal position for me.

Experiment with different positions where you're lying a bit far up or down on the bench, and see how that feels when unracking and re-racking the barbell and whether the rack of the device is in your way during each rep. See what feels best for you, but remember to try different positions while the barbell is unloaded or just loaded with light weights.

2. Shoulder blade retraction

The next essential aspect I have memorized and always make sure it is correct is the position, or rather, retraction of my shoulder blades.

With all lifts that directly or indirectly involve the shoulder joint, I keep my shoulder blades retracted.

If you don't know what it looks like or how to retract your shoulder blades, check out my article about how to flex your biceps. In that article, I describe and show multiple shoulder blade positions, such as retracted, relaxed, depressed, and elevated shoulder blades.

Now, when I get on the bench and under the bar, after making sure I lay in the correct position and I have grabbed the barbell, I then retract my shoulder blades and brace myself before I finally unrack the barbell to start my set.

3. Eccentric and concentric movement speeds

When doing each rep, I always do each rep in a controlled manner. This means I slowly let the barbell descend (the eccentric part of the exercise) until it touches or rests on my chest.

At the lowest point, I pause for a second or two before I push the barbell back up (which is the concentric part of the exercise) to the starting position.

In other words, lower the barbell slowly but push the weight back in a faster motion.

Conclusion

It's important to note that the degree of involvement of the above muscles may vary depending on factors such as grip width, barbell or dumbbell variation, and individual biomechanics.

You can safely assume that your chest muscles (the pectoralis major/minor, your front deltoids, and your triceps) are always targeted during a chest pressing exercise. Try different hand positions around the barbell and play with the inclination of a bench (when you're doing dumbbell chest press) to feel how these differences affect your muscles.

A final note about bench pressing: Always prioritize safety!. Make sure to warm up correctly and have a spotter when doing heavy sets. It's simply not worth it to get injured while exercising.

I hope you found this article helpful. What do you think of bench pressing? Let me know in the comments below! (registration to reply is not required!)